Bears will not run from danger and leave their cubs behind. A cub can never be captured unless papa and mama bear are dead, or far away from home. They hide their babies very cleverly in caves, hollow trees or under old logs where they make their winter dens. They keep the cubs hidden there for weeks and months after they are born, for bear babies are as blind as kittens, as naked as little birds, and perfectly helpless at first. They are fed with milk at their mother's breast, so she stays with the cubs while papa bear goes foraging for food for her. Mama Bear is as cross—as a bear. You know that's as cross as any one can be. She will try to kill anyone who comes near her babies.
All wild animals are fond of their mates and babies, and will fight for them. But there are few that are as brave and loving as the polar bears. Explorers and whalers tell stories that make the tears come to your eyes. In that lonely waste of frozen land and water, a polar bear family seems almost human in their close affection. In the winter the mother and cubs stay in the warm cave, but the father cannot sleep all winter long as the land bears do. He must go out into the Arctic night for food. He watches seal and walrus holes as patiently as the Esquimo. He climbs icy cliffs. He is often carried out to sea on floating ice, and he swims back, miles and miles. In the summer the whole family hunt together. If one parent is killed the other will not desert the body. Neither will leave a dead or wounded cub, but will stand over it, lick the face and wound, pet it, coax it to get up, and will fight to the death rather than be driven away. They are terrible in their grief and rage.
There are three kinds of bears—land, water and honey bears. Of course all bears love honey, and will risk being stung on their tender noses to get it. But the honiest honey bear lives in the East Indies. In his Mowgli stories, Mr. Kipling has a honey bear that he calls Baloo. This animal is called the jungle bear because he sleeps in the shady jungle all day, and also the sloth, because he is so sleepy and moves about so slowly, and also the honey eater. He and the sun bear, who loves the sun as the jungle bear loves the shade, have long upper lips that look as if they had been stung by angry bees, and stretchy rubbery tongues. They can push this lip and tongue into an ant's nest and suck up a whole village with a greedy noise you can hear yards away, They eat bees and ants, ants' eggs, rice plants, fruits, honey and even flowers. In South
